i like a bad boy, myself
by rubies and diamonds
Summary: she's a daughter of demeter, and she braids her hair with various plantation, and her whole aura seems to scream 'good girl'.


**a/n:** leave me i love these two soos ososos so much~~~

ohmYGDO this isnt an au ? what

**disclaimer:** pjo isnt mine so everything is devoted like a virginal sacrifice to rick riordan

* * *

You've seen her around the camp – as large as half-blood hill is, you're bound to run into everyone at least once in your lifetime - but you've never really spoken to her. Well, had a proper conversation with her, to say the least.

She's a daughter of Demeter, and she braids her hair with various plantation, and her whole aura seems to scream 'good girl'.

You've seen her sit around and talk with the dryads and satyrs and her various siblings while you were on strawberry picking duty – who in their right mind trusts you and Connor to actually do the job, you don't know – and you like the sound of her voice. She has a calm, gentle tone to her, and constantly keeps her hands busy, making daisy chains as she lazes around.

She's got wheat-and-barley coloured hair, not quite blonde but not quite brown, just dancing in between. Her eyes are earthy brown, but sometimes you could swear they were a subtle amber like autumn leaves. She has a spattering of dusty brown freckles that dance across her cheekbones and nose, which crinkles when she smiles.

You wonder if its normal, to wonder so much about a person you barely know, but you find it doesn't bother you all that much.

* * *

You're laying by the canoe lake, basking in the summer sun – if you weren't such a class thief you'd be surprised you were not a son of Apollo – when you're doused with water.

You bolt upright, instantly assuming that the asshole who got you was Percy, a plan of mass revenge already running through your mind faster than you and Connor when you hear police sirens, when you hear a quiet laugh behind you, halting them entirely. You turn to see a still laughing Katie Gardener, a freckled and dirty nailed hand pressed to her mouth, trying to stifle her giggles.

Shes sporting double plaits, her thick fringe hanging even lower on her eyes as a crown of red and gold flowers rests upon her head, made of breeds that you can't for the life of you name – you know daises and sunflowers and that's about it – her autumn eyes dancing as she waves at you, her thin lips pressed together to contain her smile which you can see pulling at the corners of her mouth. She has a basket in her hands, crops the same colour as her hair collected in it, and she honest to goodness looks like she's just come off a mountain after singing a song about how the hills are alive with the sound of music.

"Did you see which way Jackson went?" you ask her, shaking your head like a dog, so water splatters everywhere.

You're soaking, oh you are _so_ going to destroy this cocky kid and then tell Annabeth all about the stupid things he's done with you and Connor and how he moped to you after the fireworks last year, after he realised he really wanted to kiss her and that he - and you quote - "can't believe it took him so long to realise what a hot piece of ass she is".

"I think the camp's hero is off with his girlfriend," Katie says, grinning mischeviously.

The look on her face makes you wonder why you ever thought this girl was a goody-goody.

"Think a Nereid has taken a liking to you, though." She nods to the lake, and you peer over, a head of blue-black hair directly in you line of sight. Blue eyes look up at you, and wink.

You wave, grinning down, then turn back to Katie. "What can I say, with looks like these?"

"You could say: modesty is an aim all should strive for."

She turns and leaves, tulips growing in her path.

* * *

You're on strawberry picking duty again, and you think you and Connor have eaten and/or thrown more than you've collected in the wicker basket that's been dropped casually by your feet. Theres about three in there.

The Demeter cabin were assigned alongside the Hermes, so a familiar crop coloured head is three rows down, muttering something softly to the plants, her worn hands caressing the leaves and the soil, so the fruit around her is riper and juicer. She's already filled a basket and has nearly finished her second.

You aim one, and hit her right in the forehead.

You duck, but you just know she's seen you. Connor laughs from above you, running the other way, the awful traitor he is; and you're prepared for an onslaught of strawberry-ammo, but nothing comes. You go to stand up, albeit nervously, take a step, and trip over a foot wide root that was defiantly not there a second ago.

You hear Connor snort and you curse your good for nothing little brother.

You try to move, but your wrists and ankles have been ensnared, similar roots to the one you tripped over wrapping themselves around them.

You have a faceful of dirt and are spread-eagle.

Katie drops down next to your head and you can just about see her grin as she flicks you in the forehead.

"The camp has to make a living, you know."

It takes several of the cabin's members and a very large coping saw to free you.

* * *

You have declared war on the Demeter cabin.

You stay up that night with your siblings, talking in hushed voices, getting excited and thinking over all the possiblities you have to prank these tree-huggers, because this is your first real prank of the summer and it has to be amazing.

Pocketmouse signs wildly, to which Rod translates to mean '_lets spray pesticide or weedwacker or something that kills plants all over their roof!'_

You tell her that you like your life as it is, thanks. She rolls her eyes and holds up a finger that you can understand.

"What if we get help from the Hecate cabin and like curse all the plants to grow like mad and stink even more than they already do?" Jamie suggests.

"That would piss everyone off, not just them. Save that idea though," Connor replies. "We're bound to get pissed off with nearly everyone sooner or later."

"We need something to top the chocolate bunnies," you say, looking directly at each of your siblings in turn.

"It's nearly Halloween, what if we get all the pumpkins they've been growing and make jack o' lanterns?"

You look at Winnie, the youngest and most innocent of you lot, a hopeful look on her face, and grin.

* * *

On Halloween night, while everyone who stayed year round – a lot more than previously – trick-or-treats the other cabins, and scares each other; you and your brothers and sisters are preparing for one of your best pranks yet.

You had the help of the Hephaestus cabin, since those kids are the kind to know how to strengthen the carbon content in bicarbonate soda, and how to make a simple soda-vinigar explosion turn into something that could be likened to an atom bomb blast. Also they know how to make sweet remote control devices and how to improve on your already kick ass ideas.

You all collectively agree that cabin nine is awesome.

Jack o' lanterns dot the premiter of cabin four, all creatively carved. Obviously their pumpkins are twice the size of everyone else's, the one standing outside their cabin so big you think Winnie could fit in it. You nod to your siblings, and with stealth and speed you wouldn't think Hermes' kids were capable of, you fill the pumpkins with bicarbonate of soda, and attach the clear plastic pack filled with vinigar to the inside, making sure the thin wire attatched to it is hidden – not too hard a job when it's as dark as it is – and running it back down to Pocketmouse, who's behind a tree not far from the cabin, grinning like a madwoman and holding a remote control with a big red button on it.

Rod, who's always been good with his hands – more a heist theft sort of kid than a klepto – runs the various wires together the same way Nyssa showed him earlier, and connects them to the control.

You hide in the shadows behind the Demeter cabin and wait for the few kids that stayed behind to come out.

After five agonizing minutes a group of four walk out, one dressed as an _empousa_, another as a cyclops, one you think was supposed to be a hydra, or maybe a gorgon - you can't really tell; and the last you really have no idea.

They barely make it three steps out of the cabin door before Poketmouse slams her restless hand down on the button, destroying the plastic the vinigar was held in, and making a soda bomb explosion that could rival a nuclear blast.

You and your siblings hide behind a tree as salty foam coats the general vicinity, dousing the campers of cabin four from head to toe, and splattering slightly on cabin six and two.

The six of you nearly piss yourselves with laughter.

* * *

They get you back two days later when you wake up to a the inside of your cabin looking like a jungle.

When she shoots you a smug glance from her table at breakfast, you give in to the grudging respect that's grown for her and shoot her a playful glare back.

* * *

As the months go on you get closer to her, reasons unknown. It's not as if you never had the chance to be friends; you're both year-rounders, have both been going here for roughly the same amount of time; though its only as if you've both just realized this.

She pokes her tongue out at you from across the dining pavilion and you cross your eyes in return.

You go canoeing with her and when she capsizes her boat she pulls you under with her, and blames you for her falling.

You climb like a monkey up the climbing wall, and she just grows a twisted and gnarled trunk from the ground, sitting on a branch as it lifts her up.

You really freaking like her.

* * *

You're sitting with Katie on the now-white hill, a sledging board you stole a while ago underneath you, Peleus behind you both, breathing his warm and smoky breath that you can both feel against your backs, guarding the golden fleece and Thalia's tree. You look down on the camp below you, watching snow fights commence and snow men being made.

Multicoloured flowers that look like dasies on steroids grow around you, and she tells you that they're asters, her favourite. They mean constancy, contentfulness. She says she thinks they express her well. You're just impressed that she can grow them in the middle of winter, though you know you shouldn't be. Her mom's the goddess of agriculture, for gods sake.

You feel comfortable with her, and you're not all to sure why you do. You're thankful its not a question of _if_ you should though, because after all the war and backstabbing the camp has seen, it feels nice to trust someone.

Her fingers constantly move, piercing the stem of the aster flowers and threading them through each other. She doesn't really have all that much nail, and what little she does have is caked with soil, so you don't really know how she can cut the thick stem with the ease that she does.

She gets bored after the chain becomes at least a foot long, and moves on to trying to plait your hair. You would complain, but she talks as she works, like running her fingers through your hair is more satisfying than her plants.

"What's your mom like?" she asks as she tugs at your short, curly locks.

"Mom's awesome, actually. Don't know how she put up with me and Connor as kids, though."

"I don't know how anyone puts up with you _now_."

"You do."

"Remind me why again?"

"'Cause I'm _fabulous_."

"And _so_ modest."

"You know me, babe."

She rolls her eyes and huffs a laugh.

"So what's your dad like?" you ask her, and her fingers momentarily still in your hair.

She exhales heavily and runs her fingers through the pathetic attempt of a braid, untangling it.

"Me and my dad don't get on too well," she says, and she's taken you hand and begun to fiddle with your fingers. Why, you don't know, but you don't mind. At all.

"How come?" you ask her, and while its not uncommon for demigod children to fight with their mortal parents, you can't imagine Katie in an environment where someone _didn't_ like her, or she didn't like them.

"He's a land developer," she says, her voice heavy, and you swear the grass and flowers droop along with her mood, "works for this big company, excavating land in order to build hotels or houses or office blocks. Pointless stuff, y'know?"

You don't think houses are pointless, but you keep quiet.

"So eventually he annoyed my mum so much that she stepped in and just tried to thwart everything he did – he would chop down trees, but she'd make new ones, even bigger than the one before, regrown straight from the stump. He'd wake up to ivy coating the house, soil in his shampoo bottle, and she'd always manage to outbid him when a patch of land went up for auction, and would turn it into a farm or a wheat field or something.

He got to her one day, at an auction, all high and mighty, like 'so _you're_ the one whose been getting in my way, hahaha never expected you to be so gorgeous'" – she did a funny accent there, her voice deepening and sounding like a guy from a spy film – "and he asked her to go to dinner with him, why my mother ever agreed I don't know, but I think she thought if she graced him with me, child of the goddess of agriculture, literally born to oppose him and his job, he might change for the better." She fiddled with her fringe and ran a hand through her hair. "He didn't. He kept going, despite my protests, telling me it was all something I didn't understand just yet, but it's alright because I would in time." She muttered something under her breath that you're sure was '_entitled bastard'_ but before you could laugh at her cursing, she continued, "bet he didn't even know I'd left. Went to school one day, and a satyr came up to me and then before I knew it, I was here. Home sweet home."

She says it sarcastically, like she couldn't care less about this place, but you get the feeling it's anything but.

* * *

It's Christmas and you give her a trowel-type-thing that you made (with some help but who really cares), tricked out so it changes to a gardening fork and a rake at the push of a button.

She nearly knocks you over with the force of her hug, and you think the few times you hit your thumb with the hammer was totally worth it.

She hands you a small plant pot with a tiny sapling growing in it, a Christmas bow on the side.

"It's a venus flytrap. For some reason I thought you might like it."

You turn the pot as if trying to get a better view of the sapling. "How long before it's a metre tall and I can use it to eat my enemies?" you ask her, grinning widely.

She snorts and flicks you on the forehead. "_With great power comes great responsibility,_" she says.

You notice she has a penchant for quotes.

"And I'll have the great responsibility of feeding this guy people who think they can cross me."

* * *

Mistletoe tops every doorway, much to peoples both delight - couples, for it gives them a chance to kiss for a reason and not get yelled at by the many single people, and the Aphrodite cabin, because it's a great way to pair people up; and annoyance – everyone else.

So far you've kissed Winnie and Lou Ellen. Winnie, because she's still an adorable little kid, therefore when she demands to be carried places you physically cannot deny her, even if it means traipsing under boughs of white berries that leave you obligated to peck her softly on her cheek; and Lou Ellen because you weren't paying attention and walked under the dining pavilion arch the same time she did like the complete idiot you are. You bolted straight after, since she looked like she was about to blast your face off, and you weren't too fond of what Connor would do if he heard, either.

Katie tells you she got a smooch off Will Solace, who according to her, blushed like a virgin; and for no real reason, _of course_, you ask her if he's someone she'd like to take up on should the opportunity arise.

She laughs and turns from her place next to you to in front of you, so she's walking backwards.

"Nah, he's much too _good_ for me."

"Two goodies together, I thought that was the dream?"

"No, no, no," she says, shaking her head like you had suggested something awful. "I like to think myself a bit of a rebel."

You snort a laugh and take her hands. She doesn't object.

"So what's your type then?" you ask after a while.

"I like a bad boy, myself."

She winks and squeezes your hands before letting them go and walking off, leaving you at your cabin door.

* * *

You're both laying by the canoe lake, the sun spattering through the copse of trees around you, more than comfortable with the blonde head that is resting on your abdomen, talking about anything and everything in a soft voice.

The snow has melted and the spring air permeates the camp, making the grass a vivid green and helping the strawberry fields pick up to their usual vibrancy once more. The air still holds a fair bit of chill, despite the shining sun that hits the hills, but it's not one that calls for the need of a jacket.

You could have fallen asleep right there, and you probably would have, had Katie not sat herself up and poked you in the stomach once she realized you weren't listening to her.

"Stoll." You groan and tell her to go back to being comfy. She pokes you again, slightly more insistent this time. "Travis. Travis. _Travis_."

"What?" you ask, opening your eyes to see her looking down at you, a soft and slightly adoring expression adorning her features. Her eyes look like topaz in this light.

"I love you."

You then shoot up and launch yourself into a super-manly spluttering fit and nearly choke on air.

"What?" you gasp.

Shes grinning, her nose crinkling adorably, trying her hardest not to laugh at you. "I love you," she repeats, nodding as though that confirmed it further.

You really don't know what to do with yourself, if you're honest.

She rolls her eyes. "You okay there, Stoll?"

"Just – just fine, Gardener."

"You sure? You don't look it." She's still got that god-awful, smug grin on her face, and she still looks ridiculously adorable, and you want to kiss her so, _so_ badly.

So you do.

* * *

**a/n:** this was written on a whim i'm sorry

*whispers* katie likes bad boys pass it on


End file.
